tsukino
by wildflowers
Summary: this is a story about a mother and a mother's pain. but it is not about mother's day. it's short, and sometimes unwieldy.


I love my son, and he has no idea how he hurts me.  
  
Into a life that was becoming increasingly meaningless and pointless, he brought purpose.  
  
He gave me a chance to love again.  
  
I wanted to give him a childhood. A real one. I wanted to teach him to care, to laugh, and to love, as he taught me to. I wanted to give him everything.  
  
But his father would not allow it. He took my son away from me too early and tore to pieces every virtue I had instilled in him. He destroyed my son, and I could not recognise the person he gave me in return. That man was not my son.  
  
But a mother's love persists despite all that seeks to unmake it, and still I loved him.  
  
Even when my son was twisted beyond all recognition.  
  
Even when my son was forced to hurt, to maim, to torture.  
  
Even when my son rose to take control of the bloodthirsty clandestine organisation that was built for him to play with.  
  
Even when my son donned the masks and robes that hid his heart from the world, from me, from himself.  
  
Even when my son stopped being my son.  
  
Because, to me, he still was my son. And nothing could deny me that.  
  
He hurt me in that way which is most painful because it stems not from hatred and animosity but from love.  
  
When the men came to install the explosive within my breast I welcomed them with mixed feelings. I did not want to die, no woman who has anything to live for does. I wanted still to fulfill that duty which I was set on earth to do. I wanted still to take that child and love him into a man who would love the world. But I knew that, as long as I was alive, I would, ironically, only cause him to hate. I knew that he would do anything, in his love for me, to keep me alive, even kill. So I welcomed the machine that would bring my death. I was the chain that bound him to the darkness, I was the manacle that tied him to his path. Only through my death could he be free.  
  
I didn't foresee that he willingly accepted this trap. I was prepared to die so that he might live for himself, but he preferred to die to himself so that I could live.  
  
But what a life it was! I could not even step out of the bungalow, I could not exert myself, I could not worry, for all that would make the bomb explode. I could not do anything. And it was an empty life, and it was an empty world. Holed up in the mountains by myself, with only the wordless guards for company, I saw my husband only once a year, and my son even less. I had nothing. I was destitute.  
  
I wanted to die. There was nothing to live for. But I could not tell him, because he would oblige me, even though that was not what he wanted of me. Besides, all the times I saw him, he was even more destitute than I, and the only thing that was right of me to give him was solace and comfort. Not selfishness. I could provide a love within which he could rest and regenerate his wounded spirit, or I could force upon him one more source of anguish and torment - as a mother, it was obvious to me what I should choose. I dare not speak of this love I have for him, but I know he knows of it. I dare not tell of the deep painful ache I have. It is nestled in my breast, together with the instrument of our undoing. Through the beating of my heart I feel the beating of his lover's heart. She, and I, are one in loving this man we can never really know. I love him for her, and for me, but I cannot show that to him enough.  
  
I love my son, and he has no idea how he hurts me.  
  
He never speaks of it, but I can see it in his eyes. Each time he approaches, mask respectfully lowered, I see the savagery and the hate in his eyes that only so few are allowed to. Without that porcelain cover he cannot hide his life so well. I see in his eyes not only my reflection, but also the reflections of the people he has killed, and an almost imperceptible red sheen of blood mists his gaze. And I see the souls of the dead - his dead - calling to me. Asking me why I let them die. Demanding an answer. Forcing me to re-evaluate the sacrifices I make, for my life is the collar that binds him to their murders. If die I, he would be free, and they would live.  
  
Yet I love him. So much, I am willing to sacrifice not only my life but the lives of others as well, others I do not know, others with heart-broken mothers of their own as well.  
  
Out of the deepest kindness comes the harshest cruelty.  
  
Often in the winter, as I stare into the fireplace on the darkest nights, I am compelled to throw myself into the flames and let the bomb do its work. I wonder, as I think these thoughts, how many lives I would save. It would be right, to die in the fire as so many others have in my stead, though my fire is not a cold and brightly burning blue.  
  
I sometimes wonder what meaning my existence has. My life must be so worthless, it having caused the end of innumerable others.  
  
Why do I stop myself from taking that simple step? Maybe, I am but an old woman, I have no courage, no honour. I have no right to call myself his mother, I who have done so little in shaping him. His strength, his pain, his beauty, all these I do not pretend to believe I have put in him. The man that he is is not the man I tried to mould him into. The blood that flows in him is not even mine. Perhaps that is why I failed; because we do not share that genetic bond parents and children should.  
  
But that is no excuse for me. I am not his mother. I am his goaler.  
  
And yet he comes, not often enough, asking for me, wanting for me. He never says much, he just sits looking at me. And I see in his eyes not just cruelty but also kindness, and love. I see the words he cannot speak, the vows he cannot give. I see how much he is hurting.  
  
My son loves me, and I have no idea how I hurt him. 


End file.
